


don't break hearts, though

by rogueseas



Series: what's love other than constantly trying? [4]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Future, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Friendship, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Oikawa Tooru is a Good Friend, Physiotherapist Iwaizumi Hajime, Pro Volleyball Player Oikawa Tooru, Weddings, dumb hajime, kind of, mentions of other charas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:27:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23093311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rogueseas/pseuds/rogueseas
Summary: he breathes into the silence, “i love you,” a pause, “but i’ve accepted i can’t be anything you’ll ever want.”then tooru stands, dusting his clothes off—the night sky his background as hajime gazes at his turned back. tooru says, “perhaps i’ll go on an adventure,” and then he turns to hajime, his face with this, this—he cannot term it as anything other than a glorious smile (and yet, what is so glorious about all this? tooru would have said, laughing), one that seems to be the freest he’s seen in the past few years they’ve been together (in the days that would come after, hajime would wonder how long tooru had held his smile so strained in the years past and how he never noticed).quietly, he realizes this is the part where tooru lets him go.or,day twenty: friendzone
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru, Iwaizumi Hajime/Original Female Character(s)
Series: what's love other than constantly trying? [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1593064
Comments: 2
Kudos: 61





	don't break hearts, though

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ella](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ella/gifts).



> i'll just not follow chronological order either, jdshjkdsd. anyway! i made this for ella's birthday a month ago, hehe.
> 
> i wasn't planning on publishing this because i planned on making it longer, but i don't really have time to and when i reread it just now, i thought it was okay on its own for now. might still come back to it later, though!

i.

“hey, does this look good on me?”

hajime has always been with tooru. he's twenty-four and only older by a few months but he’s lived life so long by tooru’s side that he just woke up one day unable to imagine how it would be without him—in fact, he never had to. except—he’d realized—that there was a point in their lives where they would have to. he also realizes that—

“for the last time, shittykawa, it’s not you that’s getting married.”

…it's not tooru that leaves first, it’s him.

hajime has thought of so many scenarios in various points of his life of when tooru would leave him—in high school? because tooru would grow so much in shiratorizawa. in college? but hajime had been accepted in a university in tokyo. afterwards? oikawa and him lived together up until now, years later after he graduated and got his career.

he didn’t realize that among all those scenarios, him getting hitched would be the point wherein tooru leaves. he’d packed his bags two weeks ago, saying “since you’re getting married, i’m gonna be moving in with kuroo and bokuto, iwa-chan! living in an apartment alone when you move out would just be too lonely, iwa-chan.”

~~he'd said a lot of iwa-chans that day, almost as if it was the last time he would.~~

“…iwa-chan! iwa-chan! you never listen, how would your wife even tolerate you?!”

“what is it, shittykawa?”

“i was just saying that since we can’t do anything about you, we just have to compensate with my presence! that's why we have to make sure i look good! i'm giving you away, too, after all!” tooru sticks the back of his hand on his forehead, dramatically falling towards hajime in mock distress. hajime dodges and lets him fall.

tooru falls with a dull thud, perhaps expecting hajime not to catch him, “mean, iwa-chan! what if i got injured, huh? then i can’t be japan’s face anymore! you're a physiotherapist, too! mean iwa-chan!”

hajime ignores him and walks forward towards the mirror, fixing his bowtie. tooru appears a few moments later on the reflection, sparkling in his all-white tuxedo. hajime briefly marvels how starkly different he and tooru were—aside from his all-black and tooru’s all-white ensemble. tooru is quiet, as he fixes his necktie, seeming to finally have gotten it together.

“hey, iwa-chan, how about you marry me instead?” he was wrong.

“HA?! IDIOT. STOP FUCKING AROUND.”

“ah,” tooru laughs loudly—he laughs so long that tears start springing from his eyes and, “your reaction is so immediate,” he says, in between short breaths, “i’m serious, though. but… hmm, it would be mean to hana-chan so i guess it wouldn’t happen anyway,”

“ah, hajime, wouldn’t it be better to change your undershirt to white? hana-chan likes traditional after all. i think the black and white suit would fit you.” tooru moves towards the racks, turning his back on hajime as he browses through various coats.

hajime replies, “you should change, too, idiot. you look like you’ll be the one getting married.”

tooru pauses in his browsing, not turning back. he chuckles, “that was the point, iwa-chan,” then he laughs again briefly, turning back to send a peace sign at hajime, “just kidding! i just wanted to try it out for a bit.”

somehow, hajime feels like he’s on the cusp of losing something big as tooru walks further away to inspect other racks.

a phone ringing from his pocket startles him out of his stupor—it was hana—and tooru gestures at him to pick up. the call doesn’t last long because his fiancée has always been straight-forward.

“she’s asking me to pick her up, so i think we’ll just have to reschedule this. sorry, tooru.”

“ah,” he says, scratching the back of his head and smiling apologetically in turn, “sorry, iwa-chan, i’ll be busy the next couple of weeks because of training so i can’t accompany you anymore. i’ll ask mattsun to accompany you, instead, yeah? i promise i’ll get myself a suit before the wedding.”

hajime says okay, he says okay. everything becomes just a little bit of a stumble every time after that.

ii.

“are you nervous?” hajime elects to ignore tooru’s question as he continues surveying himself in the mirror, because he wasn’t quite sure what he was feeling, either. it was his nerves, maybe—he’s, well, marriage is a big thing.

“oh, well! you’ll do fine, hana-chan won’t be running away anytime soon and it’ll all be okay as long as you don’t trip on the carpet or accidentally spit out the wine all over hana-chan!” this retort has hajime snorting slightly, effectively lightening the atmosphere.

he decides to stop fussing over himself in the mirror, lest he become something close to what tooru is. when he turns around, tooru is quick to step forward, straightening his collar and his bowtie—although it’s probably just for pretend.

“we’ve grown up, huh?”

“are we really doing this, tooru?”

“shut up!” tooru laughs, covering a sniffle—the rims of his eyes are a bit red, though. already, hajime almost habitually reaches up to wipe tears his bestfriend has yet to shed, “don’t ruin this, we need to do this, it’s like best friend wedding rites.”

tooru exhales softly, and smiles gently as he rests both of his hands on hajime’s shoulder, “you’ll be the best man she will have ever had to love, the best father your children will ever have to be born to, we've held hands for so long that it doesn’t feel quite right that i have to let you go today, if—if only you agreed to marry me instead—ow, iwa-chan!” he laughs, dodging away from hajime’s hands as he sniffles slightly, “but hajime, with all the sincerity i could muster, i only wish you happiness with this new family you’re about to build.”

(the wedding was a beautiful affair—his wife, even moreso with her beautiful, white-flowing dress. tooru cried, so did hajime’s mother. tooru had taken being best man a notch up, inciting everyone to sing a modified version of “gaston” to “hajime”, effectively embarrassing him and pushing him to run around chasing tooru with a wine bottle in his hands.

amongst them, his beautiful wife laughed loudly as tooru hid behind her and used her as his shield.

things, then, seemed to be perfectly in place. and it was beautiful.)

iii.

it’s not like it was a bad year.

it's just that it stopped being something they wanted.

they were level-headed adults and enjoyed each other’s company for the peace that brought them together. it seemed they were the type to inherently attract excessively rambunctious people in their lives, like tooru and hana’s bestfriend.

in the end, it breaks, he thinks, because neither he nor hana were ready for anything big like this. they were the mature, pair-who-kept-it-together type and everyone assumed it would be these parts of themselves that just made it logical they marry at such a young age when so many more things could still be done. hana still wanted to travel the world and discover more of herself—and—hajime, hajime still has—

hana insists it’s not that he wasn’t ready, it’s just that there are truths hajime seems to still be unprepared to face. she says hana may not be the right one, but this doesn’t mean he also has to stick to the belief it’s because he’s not ready that the relationship didn’t work out.

hana leaves for seoul the night after the divorce is settled, free—and yet she also leaves more questions than answers.

iv.

“hajime, just because you have a broken heart doesn’t mean you get the right to break others’,” tooru says, laughing loudly as he leans against him. hajime looks at him incredulously in turn, “what the hell are you saying, trashykawa?”

tooru just laughs louder, ignoring him—or maybe he just didn’t hear him over the loud blaring of music. “it’s been four months, iwa-chan! move on,” he giggles, “to me.”

hajime decides he’s had enough and nudges tooru so he would go back to sitting upright. instead, tooru puts an elbow on the table and rests his cheek on his left palm, before turning to gaze at hajime intently—for a moment, he almost seemed sober, “why don’t you try looking at me for once?”

for a moment, those few words steal hajime’s breath away, and he answers, “huh?”

this seems to make tooru bristle—take a step back—“you should go, go! dance with people, mingle, move on. don’t break hearts, though!”

confused, hajime does as tooru says.

several nights after, he thinks, _isn’t that the only thing i've been doing the whole time?_

he wonders why hana’s voice echo in his ears as he drifts to sleep, _there are some truths you still seem to be so unprepared to face. how long must someone wait for you, hajime?_

v.

it’s two years later when he meets yuki.

yuki, when she smiles, it’s like—she could make an empire weep or the room cave in. she’s smart, hardworking, funny, adventurous. she pulls pranks on everyone, even tooru couldn’t escape unscathed—they’ve been in war ever since—and yet, somehow, hajime remains incredibly intrigued.

she initially looks like the non-settling type, like someone that can’t be quite bound for the vastness of her existence. except, hajime himself watches as she curls herself into him on the coldest days, complaining about the weather and sees the quiet spark in her eyes when they go out to the park and play with others’ dogs she’s not allowed to own—if only because of her lack of ability to care for herself.

it wasn’t even quite a solid idea yet, they had just been dating for maybe two months, or three. hajime lounges in tooru’s apartment, and he just blurts out, randomly, “i think i might want to marry her.”

he doesn’t quite see tooru falter, but he hears the noise of something breaking. “shit, sorry! i bumped my toe and my hand slipped, don’t mind it,” and then laughter, raw and rough and—a slight view of tooru appears from the kitchen, grinning—that awful, fake smile, “and, so early? don't rush into things again.”

“yeah,” hajime says, distracted now, as he observed at what could be seen from tooru’s demeanor, “i was just thinking, is all,”

tooru gives him a brief close-mouthed smile, and then he disappears.

“well, you do that, i’ll remake my coffee.” tooru doesn’t even drink coffee.

vi.

tooru disappears for weeks, maybe three, and hajime would normally be unbothered but the only way he’s receiving updates now is through matsukawa, tooru not replying to any of his messages.

the next time he does appear, it comes with a knock on the door at ten in the evening, a slightly apologetic smile on his face as he rubbed the back of his neck, he turns slightly to reveal that he brought his car—he never did—“picnic?”

hajime scowls at him but follows anyway. tooru makes hajime drive, because he’s tooru and hajime is hajime. tooru turns up the music and starts dancing along to every music that plays—even the ballads, and hajime feels tension seep out of his shoulders the longer they drove, not even realizing they were there in the first place.

they lay a mat down in front of a view overlooking the city and eat in relative peace, tooru chattering in senseless ramble—though it’s not completely senseless as he recounted the rigorous training camp he’d just gone through two weeks ago.

“you came back a week ago, huh?” hajime says, tastes the bitterness in his tongue and spits it out.

beside him, tooru tenses a little, and then just as quickly, relaxes. he laughs, he seems to give those a lot these days, “yeah.” tooru offered nothing else.

“why didn’t you contact me?”

“i didn’t wanna see you.”

“oika—”

“you must know. hajime, you know, right?” hajime simply gives him a confused look.

“i love you,” tooru says, exasperatedly, helplessly, “you have to stop pretending you don’t see because i’ve gotten tired of pretending that i don’t,” hajime doesn’t know what to say and tooru has long understood his silence.

“i’m not—i didn’t choose to be,” tooru says quietly, “i’ve just been, from the beginning. it wasn’t something i had to think hard about,” he stops for a long, long beat, “and i’m not sorry, nor do i regret it. god, hajime, it only takes so long until you could make the whole world fall in love with you.”

he looks at the sky for a while, and when he turns to look at hajime, his eyes are slightly gleaming. hajime wonders if it’s stars or it’s unshed tears. habit dictates he reach out, he doesn’t.

“i’m saying this because i can attend only so many of your weddings after all, i’m not—” the world seems to stop, no, “i don’t think i can live with giving you away anymore, hajime.”

it is quiet because the only ones there were the two of them, so the silence seemed extremely smothering, and tooru breaks it—because he is always, always colossal—always bigger than the world itself.

he breathes into the silence, “i love you,” a pause, “but i’ve accepted i can’t be anything you’ll ever want.”

then tooru stands, dusting his clothes off—the night sky his background as hajime gazes at his turned back. tooru says, “perhaps i’ll go on an adventure,” and then he turns to hajime, his face with this, this—he cannot term it as anything other than a glorious smile _(and yet, what is so glorious about all this?_ tooru would have said, laughing _),_ one that seems to be the freest he’s seen in the past few years they’ve been together (in the days that would come after, hajime would wonder how long tooru had held his smile so strained in the years past and how he never noticed).

quietly, he realizes this is the part where tooru lets him go.

tooru has ran from so many things in this lifetime, and yet he held onto hajime for so long, steadfast and firm. even now, he isn’t running away, only merely letting go, only merely letting himself be free from a love that never gave back.

_how long must someone wait for you, hajime?_

vii.

“i’m sorry,” hajime says, fidgeting with his hands—he never did this, “yuki, i’m sorry.”

“what are you apologizing for?” yuki says, smiling gently. “frankly enough, i wasn’t expecting this to last. and it’s okay.”

“it took you so long to understand, i’m not surprised it had to take him literally leaving for you to see. it was entertaining at first, and comical at best, i was always in-between wondering if he were serious with you or not but then i thought—ah, he’s just like me.”

she laughs bashfully, “i haven’t been with you long enough to love you but since it’s you, i realized he’s probably serious—has been, maybe since you two were much younger. you're mean, iwa-chan,” hajime tenses a little, and yuki smiles a little apologetically.

“it’s not too late,” she says, as a farewell, “it never really is when it’s you two. good luck, hajime.”

hajime stumbles and stumbles and stumbles and finally picks himself up.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you liked it. leave a comment or kudos if you did! hehe.
> 
> i'm at @[feralsougo](https://twitter.com/feralsougo) on twt!


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